There are thousands of candidates that would like you to vote for them on the 7th June 2024 to ensure that they stay as financially comfortable as they are, or become ever wealthier, or obtain a position through which they can sell their political soul for the opportunity to become wealthy.
In the council elections alone, the candidates seeking re-election and the wannabes are trying to convince you to gift them one of the seats in councils throughout the State.
The 'winners' will receive a seat in a political institution which purports to represent the views of 'the electorate' but which, in reality, represents the view of the highest bidder.
Or, at least, those of you who claim your ballot and fill it in in the manner that is expected of you ie the State political establishment expect you to vote for State establishment candidates, regardless of whether those candidates are Irish or not, or whether they are men dressed as women or vice versa.
But there is a way by which you can claim your ballot, fill it in - and exclude yourself from the 'Losers Circle' : by purposely spoiling it if you haven't got the opportunity to vote for a candidate that values our Irishness - our culture, our traditions and our heritage.
With that in mind, a group of concerned citizens (now representing between 350 and 400 voters) in the part of Clondalkin, Dublin, that I live in, got together, informally at first, then in a more structured manner, had a chat and publicly issued a 'Wish List' to any interested candidates.
That 'Wish List' can be read here and, before the election (7th June 2024) I'll let you know how we got on (we have our final [?] meeting on the 5th).
If, however, you do decide or are still determined to tell them all to feck off, write a 'message' on your ballot paper, such as 'NOTA', or something stronger, and place it in the ballot box.
If enough of us do it, it will register with the 'powers-that-be' and, hopefully, force them to recognise that enough of us are not willing to participate in a faulty political system which, among other issues, under false "international obligations", compels us to house, feed and medically treat etc the whole world, and in which morally and politically-bankrupt 'blank canvas' party people do the bidding of their party bosses in the hope that, someday, they, too, will become party bosses.
'Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me' - don't get fooled (again) - vote 'NONE OF THE ABOVE' in the elections on Friday, 7th June, 2024, if you suspect the candidate is only seeking to feather his/her own nest, offering nothing in return : you don't owe anything to those candidates or the foreigners they may be promoting, so give them just that : nothing.
On the 22nd May, 1920 (listed elsewhere as the 16th), following the advice of the British 'Fisher Report', the staff in their main base in Ireland, Dublin Castle, were given a bit of a shakin' and a shufflin' by Westminster!
A Mr John Anderson (pictured), the '1st Viscount Waverley' (!), arrived in Dublin from what he would have regarded as 'the Mainland', to take up his new post as 'Joint Under Secretary', a position he shared with a Mr James MacMahon, a former 'Inspector General' of the RIC.
Mr Anderson was, by all accounts, a cold customer of aloof characteristics, a 'jobsworth', and set to work immediately : he instructed his 'Assistant Under Secretaries' (!), Andrew Cope and Mark Sturgis, to arrange a meeting for him with the then 'Inspector General' of the RIC, a Mr TJ Smith.
The meeting was arranged for that same day and, at it, the new bossman, Mr Anderson, was told in no uncertain terms by Mr Smith that he dreaded each new day because "he was in daily fear either of wholesale resignations or his men running amok.." due to the pressure from the Irish rebels!
A right 'Baptism of Fire' for poor Mr Anderson, who had to report the information back to his bossmen in Westminster.
Had we been around then, Mr Anderson, I'm sure we would have said that we feel your pain...
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In Ballinrobe, in County Mayo, on the 22nd May, 1920, two Irish republicans, Kevin O'Shiel and Art O'Connor, presided over a court case involving a land dispute between, on the one side, a Mr Hyland and a Mr Murphy, who were renting the 'Fountain Hill' farm (on behalf of the Magdalene Asylum in Galway) and, on the other side, nine tenants who were occupying part of the land.
Mr Hyland and Mr Murphy won the case but the tenants refused to accept the court ruling and stayed where they were.
The IRA were sent in to enforce the court ruling and a number of the tenants were arrested and transported to a small island in Lough Corrib, County Galway, an 'open air' (!) prison.
The tenants relented and the court ruling came into effect.
Judge O'Sheil later recalled that particular case, stating that "no event did us, or our courts, more good.." than that judgement, as it secured further recognition for the Republican Courts from the citizens, ensuring that the decisions of the courts were deemed to be acceptable (sometimes reluctantly!) and the Judge, as an acknowledged land arbitration commissioner, settled about another seventy such cases over the following three months or so, with each case being publicised in the newspapers of the day.
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On the 22nd May, 1921, Pope Benedict XV wrote a 'middle-of-the-road' letter in relation to British political and military interference in Irish affairs, in which he stated...
"...we do not see how the bitter strife can profit either of the parties, when property and homes are being ruthlessly and disgracefully laid waste, when villages and farmsteads are being set aflame...when, on both sides, a war resulting in the deaths of unarmed peoples, even of women and children is carried on...the English as well as the Irish (must) calmly consider some means of agreement..."
Westminster was disappointed, to put it mildly, with that statement, as they had been working away in the background to convince the Vatican to condemn the Irish republican struggle, a condemnation which would have carried weight in Ireland.
The British administration viewed the Pope's sentiments as a PR disaster for them, and their 'Foreign Office' all but condemned it, claiming that it placed...
"...His Majesty's Government in exactly the same category as the authors of arson and cold blooded murder..(it puts us) and the murder gang on a footing of equality.."
Irish republicans, however - then and now - were and are of the opinion that it was a lost opportunity by Rome, which should have availed of the situation to completely close down the 'moral right' of any imperialist power to interfere in the political and societal business of any other country.
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On the 22nd May, 1921, IRA Volunteer Patrick O'Brien was on active service with his comrades, re-opening a road trench which had been filled-in by British troops.
There was an explosion, and Volunteer O'Brien died at the scene.
The IRA investigated what had happened and discovered that the British had booby-trapped the trench ; they had place a Mills bomb in the trench, about a foot under the surface, and attached a length of wire from its pin to a rock.
When the rock was lifted, it pulled the pin from its socket and the bomb exploded.
Volunteer O'Brien had been working in America, aware of the on-going struggle in his home country, and decided to return home to live with his mother and join the local IRA Company in Coolcappa, in County Limerick.
The British simply stated, after they mentioned that Coolcappa, in Limerick, was one of the areas that they had recently imposed martial law in, that "Patrick O'Brien's death was due to shock, hemorrhage and exposure, following injuries received by misadventure, probably caused by falling into a trench..."
Westminster spat on Volunteer O'Brien when he was alive, and spat on him again after they killed him.
RIP Volunteer Patrick O'Brien.
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On the 22nd May, 1921, the East Waterford Brigade of the IRA, consisting of three Battalions (over 700 Volunteers) held a meeting at which Brigade Officers passed a vote of no confidence in their Officer Commanding, Paddy Paul (pictured, in New York, in 1970) and elected Michael Power as O/C instead.
However, when they told GHQ in Dublin of the change of O/C, they got no support and Paddy Paul was confirmed as the O/C, as far as Dublin was concerned.
The Volunteers obviously felt uneasy about Paddy Power who, shortly after joining the IRA, was appointed a Company Instructor, then a Battalion Instructor and was quickly advanced again to the position of Brigade Officer Commanding (he was eventually replaced in that position by Volunteer Seán Matthews and, incidentally, Paddy Paul ended his military career as an artillery officer in the Free State Army).
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On the 22nd May, 1921, in the 'British House of Commons' (sic), 'Sir' Hamar Greenwood, '1st Viscount Greenwood' (pictured) repeated, again, his promise to... "...hunt down the murder gang in Ireland and to pluck the last revolver out of the last assassin's hand.."
'Sir' Greenwood died in 1948, at 78 years of age, having never kept that promise.
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On the 22nd May, 1921, at about 11pm, the Athy (County Kildare) Company of the IRA made an unsuccessful attack on the RIC Barracks, which was located in the former British Army Barracks in Barrack Lane, Athy (those enemy forces were last holed-up in White's Castle).
The RIC turned a machine gun on the rebels, who continued to attack for about half an hour, and withdrew with no casualties just as the RIC discharged Verey Pistols into the air, calling for assistance.
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'AN OLD AND UNFAIR CRITICISM.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
I was amazed to read Aknefton's article under the above heading in 'The Irish Times' of 19th March 1955.
It stated -
'Birth of Fianna Fail.
When, around 1927, Eamon de Valera and his lieutenants decided to leave Sinn Féin - because inter alia that organisation did not appear to be sufficiently concerned with the economic wellbeing of the Irish people - they decided to found a new body of their own, Fianna Fáil.
This organisation attracted the normal and natural leadership of the working people, both from the agricultural and industrial communities.
Now, it is interesting to remember that, at an historic Ard Fheis of Fianna Fáil - I believe it was either the first or the second - held in the Rotunda, Dublin, quite a number of resolutions dealing with purely economic problems were moved and discussed.
Some of them were even of an ultra-leftist vintage yet, out of more than 1,000 delegates, roughly one-third of the assembly supported the left approach. In the light of current political affairs, it is important to remember that the Ard Fheis had its quota of clergymen delegates...'
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (22ND MAY) 92 YEARS AGO : DEATH OF A 'POACHER-TURNED-GAMEKEEPER' WHO 'TURNED' THE RIGHT WAY.
On the 4th March, 1880, at 28 years young, Isabella married 'Sir' William Henry Gregory who was 63 years of age and 'owned' a large estate at Coole Park, near Gort, in County Galway, thus conveying on her the title 'Lady'.
The couple had one son, Robert, born on the 20th May, 1881, who was killed while piloting a warplane during the 'First World War', a death marked by WB Yates in two poems - 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death' and 'In Memory of Major Robert Gregory'.
As a 'Lady of Leisure' who now found herself in the 'Big House' she availed of the large library and, when not reading, accompanied her husband on business trips throughout the world.
Her education, the library and her foreign travels sparked within her a love of the written word, and she quickly became a published author.
Her husband died when she was 41 years of age but she continued to live in 'the Big House', where her interest in all things Irish was nurtured, to the point that she practically converted the house into a 'retreat' for those who, like her, were smitten by Ireland and its troubled history - Edmund John Millington Synge, William Butler Yeats (and his brother, Jack, a well-known painter), George Bernard Shaw (who described her as "the greatest living Irishwoman") and Sean O'Casey were amongst those who visited regularly and, indeed, she was believed to have had romantic connections with the poet Wilfrid Blunt and a New York lawyer, John Quinn.
Despite her privileged lifestyle or, indeed, perhaps due to it, as it afforded her the time to 'look within her soul', Isabella Augusta Persse Gregory, who had a regular 'audience' with the 'Upper Class' of the day, loudly declared to all and sundry that it was "..impossible to study Irish history without getting a dislike and distrust of England..".
A 'poacher-turned-gamekeeper' but, unusual in our history, one who 'turned' the right way.
She died in that 'Big House' on the 22nd May 1932 - 92 years ago on this date - at 80 years of age, and is fondly remembered by those of us who share her convictions and agree with her "..impossible to study.." declaration.
Incidentally, the 'Big House' scenario still exists in Ireland today, and continues to be a topic of heated conversation, and will hopefully remain so after the British withdraw, politically and militarily, from Ireland.
SO, FAREWELL THEN, CELTIC TIGER....
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Most of the pundits and economists were too busy singing the Celtic Tiger's praises to notice, but a few critical observers worried all along about the weaknesses of a boom economy that depended so much on a few companies from one place - the United States.
By Denis O'Hearn.
From 'Magill' Annual 2002.
If practically all of the economy's profits are concentrated in the foreign sector, what will be left as an investment source if they disinvest from Ireland, as they did in the 1980's?
Economists and politicians have argued that this is unlikely to happen ; they say that the foreign sector is much more 'rooted' in the Irish economy today than it was in the 1980's.
This should make it harder for them to pick up and leave, yet this idea of being 'rooted' may be mistaken. US computer firms are not rooted in Ireland, they are rooted to each other within Ireland.
Dell buys computer parts from other American companies that happen to be in Ireland, but neither of them buys much from local Irish companies ; on the contrary, a 1999 study of 2,667 Irish companies by 'Enterprise Ireland' found that only 174 supplied transnational corporations (TNC's)...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (22ND MAY) 219 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF A 'YOUNG IRELANDER'.
DEAR SIR,
In dedicating to you this narrative, I have been influenced by one consideration only. I have no title to your friendship. I cannot claim the most remote affinity with your career in arms. There is nothing connected with this sad fragment of history, either in fact or hope, to suggest any association with your name or achievements. But as my main object is to show that Ireland’s failure was not owing to native recreancy or cowardice, I feel satisfied that of all living men, your position and character will best sustain the sole aim of my present labour and ambition.
In past history, Ireland holds a high place ; but her laurels were won on foreign fields, and the jealous literary ambition which raised adequate monuments to these stormy times denied to her swords the distinction they vindicated for themselves in the hour of combat. The most brilliant, unscrupulous and daring historian of France degraded the niggard praise he accorded them by making it the medium of a false and contemptible sneer. “The Irish soldier,” says Voltaire, “fights bravely everywhere but in his own country.”
Without pausing here to vindicate that country from such ungrateful slander, it is enough to say that you were not placed in the same unhappy position as the illustrious exiles from the last Irish army — soldiers of fortune in the service of a foreign prince. You were a citizen of this free Republic, and a volunteer in its ranks ; it was your country, and you and your compatriots who followed the same standard did no dishonour to those who were bravest among the brave on the best debated fields in Europe.
In the wreck of every hope, all who yet cherish the ambition of realising for Ireland an independent destiny, point to your career as an encouraging augury, if not a complete justification for not despairing of their country. It is because I am among those that I have claimed the honour of inscribing your name on the first page of this, my latest labour in her cause.
I remain, dear Sir,
Very respectfully and sincerely yours,
MICHAEL DOHENY.
New York, Sept. 20, 1849.
'Who was Michael Doheny? For most of us he was the author of the neglected work 'The Felon’s Track'. For some he was the man who fled from the fiasco in Ballingarry in that bad summer of 1848 to walk 150 miles across Munster to little place called Dumanway, where he hoped to raise help in his efforts to escape from Ireland. Some others will know him as the writer of such hyperbolic verses as :
'I’ve tracked for thee the mountain side,
And slept within the brake,
More lonely than the swan that glides,
O’er Lua’s fairy lake...'
And for those with nationalist interests, he will be known as one of the prime movers in the 1840’s Confederacy in Ireland, and later one of the leading founders, in the United States, of the Fenian movement...' (from here.)
The Irish 'dissident', Michael Doheny, was born on this date (22nd May) in 1805 - 219 years ago - near Fethard, in County Tipperary, and became known as a poet and a writer. He was a member of the 'Young Irelanders', and was instrumental in establishing the 'Emmet Monument Association' in America.
After a lifetime in the service of Ireland, he died on the 1st April in 1863, aged 58, in New York, and is buried in Calvary Cemetery, in Maspeth and Woodside, Queens, in New York.
'What fate is thine, unhappy Isle,
When even the trusted few
Would pay thee back with hate and guile,
When most they should be true!
’Twas not my strength or spirit quailed,
Or those who’d die for thee -
Who loved thee truly have not failed,
A cuisle geal mo chroidhe!'
BEIR BUA...
Republicanism in history and today.
Published by the James Connolly/Tommy O'Neill Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, The Liberties, Dublin.
August 1998.
('1169' comment - 'Beir Bua' translates as 'Grasp Victory' in the English language.)
ROBERT EMMET AND THE IRELAND OF TODAY...
"The fathers and mothers of Ireland should often tell their children that story of Robert Emmet and that story of Anne Devlin.
To the Irish mothers who hear me I would say that when at night you kiss your children and in your hearts call down a benediction, you could wish for your boys no higher thing than that, should the need come they may be given the strength to make Emmet's sacrifice, and for your girls no greater gift from God than such fidelity as Anne Devlin's.
It is more than a hundred years since these things were suffered ; and they were suffered in vain if nothing of the spirit of Emmet and Anne Devlin survives in the young men and young women of Ireland.
Does anything of that spirit survive?
I think I can speak for my own generation.
I think I can speak for my contemporaries in the Gaelic League, an organisation which has not yet concerned itself with politics, but whose younger spirits are accepting the full national idea and are bringing into the national struggle the passion and the practicalness which marked the early stages of the language movement..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (22ND MAY) 103 YEARS AGO : LAST KNOWN DAY ON EARTH OF A BRITISH 'RFAIO' IN IRELAND.
Casualty of the Great War, Captain Vincent served with the Army Educational Corps - he "disappeared at Fermoy", while working for the Intelligence services*, presumed abducted and murdered (sic) by the IRA - body exhumed 1926...originally of the 1/13th London Regiment (Kensingtons) (he) was evacuated from Le Havre on 5th July 1916 suffering from shell shock and shrapnel wounds to the right foot and left arm. He returned to France in May 1917 and served in Salonika with the 82nd Company, Machine Gun Corps. He was was born in 1890 and lived in Loughton, Essex.
He was seconded to the 168th Machine Gun Company on 16th March 1916. He died in strange circumstances in May 1921.
He had been transferred to the 2nd Brigade, RFA, in December 1920 and had been serving at Fermoy in County Cork. He had applied for a transfer to the Army Educational Corps (because) before the war he was a teacher, and had then asked to resign his commission...' (from 'The British Wartimes Project' compilation).
The 22nd May 1921 - 103 years ago on this date - was his last known day on Earth ; he disappeared without trace on the 23rd.
It was not until an anonymous letter was sent to the British Government in June 1924 containing details of the burial of a British officer in Lenihans Bog, Glenville, County Cork, that further investigations took place.
At the time of his disappearance, the Colonel commanding the 16th Infantry Brigade, based at Fermoy, in Cork, basically accused Mr Vincent of lying about his intentions of going on leave but, within a week, another report, regretting several errors in the first, was issued, which noted that he had appeared somewhat disorientated before going on (approved) leave.
The report stated that, five days after he left, three members of the 2nd Brigade of the IRA raided Fermoy Station and broke into the office there, taking various items from Mr Vincents luggage, including a service revolver.
Although the RIC were informed, nothing was ever discovered about his whereabouts.
It is thought that he, and possibly another man, were killed by the IRA and buried at Lenihans Bog.
Mr Vincents body was later re-interred in Glenville Church of Ireland, Glenville, County Cork.
*The IRA found a notebook in Royal Field Artillery Intelligent Officer Vincent's pocket in which he had listed the contact details of locals that were opposed to the struggle for independence - he was gathering intelligence on where 'friendly houses' were located and probably attempting to convince the local 'friendlies' to forward any information in connection with the 'dissidents' on to him.
As a teacher by profession, his was a lesson hard learned.
ON THE 22ND MAY 1922...
...the Red Flag was hoisted and about 100 men fell-in behind it in Naas, County Kildare.
They formed into lines and marched to the Courthouse and the local County Council office, calling for fair play for the unemployed in society and, when they reached the Council office, some of their number entered the building and insisted that a resolution be proposed and passed in support of their requirements, which it was.
Unfortunately, the timing was not the best for them, as other issues were taking centre stage...
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A Mr John McLarnon was working in the Midland Railway Station in Belfast when he was shot dead.
A Mr Charles McMurty was also shot dead on that date, and a Mr George Lawson and a Mr Thomas Boyd were shot dead.
A Mr Jack O'Hare was jumped on by a loyalist gang near the Albert Bridge in Belfast and was then thrown into the River Lagan, in full view of the RIC, who did not intervene.
A Mr James Brady was also shot dead on that same date.
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The Church of Ireland leadership in Ireland were anxious about their members being unfairly targetted in any new Irish Free State and requested a meeting with Michael Collins to discuss the matter.
Mr Collins assured them that the policy of not 'choosing enemies' because of their religious beliefs would continue, adding - "Ireland required the services of all of her sons of every class and creed.."
Except, apparently, those that still wanted the British removed from Ireland, politically and militarily.
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A Mr Joseph Ballantine (52) was in the process of removing furniture from his home in Raphoe, in County Donegal, when he answered a knock at his door.
He opened the door to be met by three men and was shot in the stomach ; he died from his wound.
He was an ex-RIC member.
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On the 7th April, 1922, 'Article 23B of the Special Powers Act' (which, among other British injustice 'laws', allowed for internment in six of our counties) was brought into force and, on the evening of the 22nd May that year and the morning of the 23rd, over 200 nationalist/republican men were 'arrested' by Crown Forces.
Inside of four months, 446 men were interned and an estimated 728 men were detained between May 1922 and the end of 1924.
In what was an opportunistic operation rather than an authorised IRA 'job', a Mr William Twaddell (a draper by profession), a unionist MP for the Woodvale area of Belfast, was assassinated in Garfield Street, off the Royal Avenue.
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Four (Catholic) homes on the Magherafelt side of Desertmartin in County Derry were attacked, with one being burnt to the ground and the others shot-up with some of the occupants receiving injuries.
Days afterwards, nationalists/republicans in the area received letters 'ordering' them to leave the area.
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At a meeting of Free State Army officers, dissatisfaction was expressed with how their army was progressing in the 'Unity Talks' being held between it and the IRA and, such was the level of angst within the Staters, that Free State General Jeremiah Joseph (JJ) 'Ginger' O'Connell tendered his resignation letter on the 23rd, but it was not accepted by his superiors.
Mr O'Connell had had a narrow escape a few months previously, when he was held hostage by the IRA -
'The republicans knew that 'Ginger' was valued by Collins and his renegades - he was one of the few that eagerly conveyed the 'cancel-the-Rising'-order from Eoin MacNeill in 1916 and both Collins and Mulcahy regarded him as a safe pair of hands.
Collins's political and military bosses in London were notified about 'JJ Ginger' being held in republican custody and made it clear to Collins that if he and his Free State colleagues didn't take steps to remove the republicans from the Four Courts, they would...' (From here.)
The Ginger lad (!) survived both the IRA and the Staters, and died on the 19th February, 1944, in the Richmond hospital, in Dublin, having suffered a heart attack.
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Thanks for the visit, and for reading!
Sharon and the team.
